by Xochitl Campos
Daily Lobo
UNM may change it's undergraduate curriculum to meet the needs of a changing student body, said Terry Babbitt, interim vice president for enrollment management.
Freshman enrollment is down for a second year, but school officials said the decline is offset by an increase in transfer students.
This year's freshman class is about 4 percent smaller than last year's, a difference of about 120 students, Babbitt said.
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Undergraduate transfers to UNM increased by about 20 percent, an increase of about 100 students, Babbitt said.
Transfer students change the University's demographic, and most of them are from community colleges in the area,
he said.
"A little bit of a shift is for these students to go to a community college like CNM," he said. "They have more of those students this year than last year and those things happen. They are cyclical."
The University is discussing ways to help transfer students succeed, Babbitt said.
"What we're going to do is analyze when these students come in as transfers and the course needs they have," he said. "It is not a huge change, but it is a little bit of change in our curriculum planning."
The freshman class nearly doubled over a 10-year period, according to the UNM Fact Book.
In 1996, the freshman class had 1,629 students. In 2005, it had 3,095.
The freshman class won't likely grow as it had from 1996 to 2005, but the number of transfer students will continue to increase, Babbitt said.
The change is a good sign for higher education, said Viola Florez, interim
provost.
"The students have options," Florez said. "They have options to go to different places, and when they feel they might be ready to move to a four-year institution, they come here."
